I recently found an interesting and well-written blog about working as an English editor in the China Daily. The China Daily is China’s national English-language newspaper and is renowned for its deadly boring content. The blog, Leaking State Secrets (Life of a China Daily English Editor) was written by an Australian man who worked at the China Daily for a few months last year. His posts are very funny and I can relate to them after working at Map Magazine in Nanjing. Incidentally, my predecessor at Map was one of the man’s co-workers and his photos are featured on the blog.
The blog helps reinforce the idea that the English-language media in China is one big hilarious joke for the Chinese government. I feel a bit sorry for the English editors who work at the China Daily and spend hours editing badly-written English, only for the by-line of the Chinese ‘journalist’ to appear in the final copy. I think that the guy is a bit paranoid though, he is constantly worried about getting into trouble for writing the blog, hence the title. He eventually returned to Australia and is now living in Sydney. | 